Many continue to die trying to reach it. Last year, according to the International Organization of Migration, around 5300 migrants perished in the world. A good part of these were traveling to Europe. The routes of the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, the Balkans and other lesser known borders have become the emblematic place of the Great defense of the continent with respect to the innate right of human mobility. Looking for new horizons of life is not only not a crime, but it is what humans have always tried to do. Stability was the exception and migration the rule. Europe knows this, because in a not too distant time in history it was the most ‘nomadic’ continent of all.
The Eldorado has not finished seducing those who see in Europe a bulwark for ‘barbarism’. It manifests itself elsewhere in poverty, dictatorships, coups d’etat, famine, wars and betrayal of the promises of independence of the 1960s. Europe presents itself as a tributary and influential, shelter against human rights abuses and land of asylum for a number of people who have lost all hope of the future. A good number of migrations are, so to speak, ‘return’, in the sense that some of the peoples who, at the time, had been prey to colonization arrive. We know that history is never one-sided and that, despite attempts to erase its traces, it is somewhat stubborn. To each his turn, one might say.
Then there is Europe seen as an insatiable holder of power. On a substantial part of the resources of the Sahel, on its economic policies and on the type of regimes that govern it, on the borders that it, Europe, has extended in the depths of history and geography, on educational choices and above all on the cultural imaginary . The arrogant Europe that thinks it is still at the center of the world to decide the fate. A Europe, seen from the Sahel, as a natural follow-up to the recolonization process that takes place with the consent, often bought, of the local elites, far from passive in these operations of depossession of the most vulnerable classes of the people. The Europe that exploits, expropriates and then proposes to help those who are stolen.
What the Sahel knows best about Europe is its own humanitarian face. Hundreds of international, global, delocalized, nationalized, perpetuated, invented, bought, sold and otherwise present NGOs are on the ground. They help and work hard to alleviate suffering, to palliate endemic crises or urgent emergencies. They accompany the absent State in the management of famines, epidemics, natural disasters or those produced by neglect. They dictate ways, times, tables and allow a slice of the population to survive. They create models of society and management of ‘human capital’ and try to make the best use of ‘people-resources’, they pay handsomely for the rent of properties whose owners are often politicians or affiliated to the party. They manufacture courses and appeals to ‘strengthen the capacities’ of the people.
Finally, there is Europe that makes you smile the Sahel because it appears as vulnerable as ever. Afraid of its lost potency and viruses that slide at will and that you try to impose as something new in Africa.
The Sahel smiles when it hears the ‘old’ continent affirm the principles of democracy and freedom and then lock up its citizens. He smiles in pity in observing different weights and measures in imposing human rights and humanitarian wars to export the only possible model of democracy. The Sahel smiles when it hears the noise caused by the French ‘Mirages’ in the sky and sees the columns of soldiers pass by and assumes that everyone, after all, is only looking for their own particular and national interest. And finally, the sand smiles at the thought of the imminent arrival of new European migrants who will search in the Sahel for what they have lost in their home.